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<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/24007156">The Drunken Ramblings of Elfland</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/elisi/pseuds/elisi'>elisi</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>Good Omens (TV), Good Omens - Neil Gaiman &amp; Terry Pratchett</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>Fairy tales are real, G. K. Chesterton - Orthodoxy, Gen, Post-Episode: Good Omens: Lockdown, philosophy i guess?, what even is my brain</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>Completed</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2020-05-04</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2020-05-04</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-05-02 22:47:15</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>General Audiences</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>No Archive Warnings Apply</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>1</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>823</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/24007156</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/elisi/pseuds/elisi</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>Aziraphale, having turned down Crowley’s offer of hunkering down together, carries on reading. He should maybe have chosen his reading material more carefully. Or at least gone easy on the cognac. </p>
<p>A minor crisis ensues.</p>
<p>(Is there such a thing as conceptual fic? If not, then there is now. What even <i>is</i> this?)</p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Relationships:</b></td><td>Aziraphale/Crowley (Good Omens)</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Comments:</b></td><td>22</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>37</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>The Drunken Ramblings of Elfland</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><ul class="associations">
      <li>For <a href="https://archiveofourown.org/users/promethia_tenk/gifts">promethia_tenk</a>.</li>



    </ul><blockquote class="userstuff">
      <p>For Promethia, who bravely delved into <i>Orthodoxy</i> some months ago. </p>
<p>As for the <i>why</i>… well.</p>
<p>There are a lot of books shown in the Good Omens Lockdown video, but only a few open ones. There’s a recipe for <i>Wholewheat girdle cakes</i> at 2:21 and we glimpse a page of <i>The Pilgrim’s Progress</i> at 2:51. However, I was curious about the one we could see at 1:14. After a bit of googling, I discovered that it was Chapter 4 of G.K.Chesterton’s Orthodoxy: <a href="http://www.gkc.org.uk/gkc/books/orthodoxy/ch4.html">The Ethics of Elfland</a>.</p>
<p>This quite frankly <i>ridiculous</i> ficlet was the result. Written in a few hours, barely edited, and with many thanks to enevarim for  having a look at it and very kindly not saying that clearly lockdown has finally broken my brain.</p>
<p>A quick word of advice: No, it’s not really supposed to make sense. Although if you feel brave you can read the chapter in question, which will help you to understand what the characters are talking about. Because — bewildering as that chapter is, there is no denying that the world of Good Omens follows fairy tale rules.</p>
<p>ETA: There is now a prequel: <a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/24337099">A Pilgrim’s Progressive Panic </a>. :)</p>
    </blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p><i>Fairyland is nothing but the sunny country of common sense. I knew the magic beanstalk before I had tasted beans; I was sure of the Man in the Moon before I was certain of the moon. Old nurses do not tell children about the grass, but about the fairies that dance on the grass; and the old Greeks could not see the trees for the dryads.</i><br/>
</p>
<p></p><div class="center">
  <p>*</p>
</div><p>The phone rang.</p>
<p>It rang for such a long time that it roused Crowley from his sleep, eventually causing him to crawl down the wall and pick up his mobile.</p>
<p>“Mwhat?” he grumbled, dearly hoping that the angel had a very good explanation for why he was calling again. Unless it was already July and he’d overslept…</p>
<p>“What if there’s an ‘if’?” Aziraphale asked, voice somewhat slurred. “An ‘if’ that we don’t know about? A — a conditional clause to — to <i>things</i>? What if that’s what ineffability is? What if we accidentally do the thing we’re not supposed to? What if we look the winged horse in the mouth and ruin everything?”</p>
<p>Crowley, still half-asleep and barely conscious, was unable to translate these questions into something he could comprehend, or even anything vaguely adjacent to comprehensible. The angel blithely carried on. </p>
<p>“Or — or what if God just gets bored? What if She stops creating daisies or grass or telling the sun to rise and just… drops the cosmos with a crash? What if-”</p>
<p>The words pinged around Crowley’s mind, like a metallic ball in a pinball machine, eventually hitting the right spot and causing him to pinch the bridge of his nose in what might as well have been physical pain. There was no way he could have this discussion over the phone.</p>
<p>“Hang on,” he muttered, took a deep breath, and dived down the phone line. Self-isolation be damned.</p>
<p>He emerged in the bookshop still in his pyjamas, and for a moment just silently surveyed the scene. There somehow seemed to be even more books than usual, added to which were a great many cakes, as well as a great many plates upon which rested a great many crumbs. </p>
<p>There was also an angel on a sofa, with several empty bottles of Courvoisier beside him.</p>
<p>And — on the nearest pile of books — an open tome that made Crowley sigh deeply.</p>
<p>“Have you been reading <i>Orthodoxy</i>?”</p>
<p>Aziraphale looked as guilty as it was possible to look whilst also being drunk and attempting nonchalance. Which is fairly.</p>
<p>“I… might have had a glance…”</p>
<p>“Angel. Chesterton was a terrific guy and we shan’t see his like again, but we do <i>not</i> grapple with <i>Orthodoxy</i>, remember?”</p>
<p>Aziraphale did something that was most definitely a pout. </p>
<p>“But he glimpsed the <i>truth</i>, I can’t just-”</p>
<p>“Aziraphale.” Crowley dragged a hand across his face, then knelt down by the sofa. “Look at me.”</p>
<p>Those big blue eyes fastened on him with unerring focus, and Crowley began to worry that he might be in danger. Of what, he wasn’t exactly sure, but definitely something.</p>
<p>Aziraphale pointed at him, a finger poking at Crowley’s chest.</p>
<p>“<i>You</i>. You were the nurse. ‘The solemn and star-appointed priestess at once of democracy and tradition.’ An’ you taught the boy the <i>truth</i>. Twas the wrong boy, but it was still the <i>truth</i>.”</p>
<p>Crowley resisted the impulse to hit his head against something hard, instead trying his best to shake the cobwebs of sleep out of his brain.</p>
<p>“We both did. But <i>all</i> children know the truth. Most of them just forget when they grow up.”</p>
<p>Aziraphale nodded slowly.</p>
<p>“We all live in Elfland. But we broke the Law. So what happens now?”</p>
<p>Crowley looked at his angel for a long time, then snapped his fingers and a crate of wine appeared.</p>
<p>“The definition of a law is something that can be broken. C’mon, budge up angel. I need to be more drunk before I discuss this.”</p>
<p>Aziraphale managed to move, if not easily (too much cake, as well as too much cognac) and Crowley crawled onto the sofa, opened a bottle, then miracled a wine glass and filled it.</p>
<p>“Fine. Let’s do this thing. Let’s hoard the hills and appreciate our cosy little cosmos, and make sure not to overlook Matterhorn in the confusion.”</p>
<p>There was something in the glint in Aziraphale’s eyes that made him think he might have been played, but he couldn’t quite work out how.</p>
<p>Instead he smiled and launched into a thorough commentary on Chesterton’s ideas. Knowing in his heart that the man had been right, and that <i>this</i>, right here, was what he — they — had saved, to be stored and held sacred.</p>
<p></p><div class="center">
  <p>*</p>
</div><i>And last, and strangest, there had come into my mind a vague and vast impression that in some way all good was a remnant to be stored and held sacred out of some primordial ruin. Man had saved his good as Crusoe saved his goods: he had saved them from a wreck. </i>
  </div><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_foot_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff"><p>On G.K.Chesterton and Good Omens:</p>
<p>In the lockdown video there are several Chesterton books on display in all the piles, which isn’t surprising, given the dedication in the book:</p>
<p></p><div class="center">
  <p>The authors would like to join the demon Crowley in<br/>dedicating this book to the memory of</p>
  <p>G.K. Chesterton</p>
  <p>A man who knew what was going on.</p>
</div><br/>In the book Crowley references Chesterton on page 273. He’s leaving London and on his way to Tadfield, having just come from Aziraphale's burned bookshop which fell on top of him:<blockquote>
  <p>Lightning made the London skies flicker like a malfunctioning fluorescent tube.</p>
  <p><i>A Livid sky on London</i>, Crowley thought, <i>And I knew the end was near</i>. Who had written that? Chesterton, wasn't it? The only poet in the twentieth century to even come close to the Truth.</p>
</blockquote><br/>The poem in question is <a href="http://www.gkc.org.uk/gkc/books/oldsong.html">The Old Song</a>.<p>Recommended. As is most of Chesterton’s output. You will find many echoes of Aziraphale in Father Brown. (Or maybe it's the other way around...)</p></blockquote></div></div>
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